INVESTIGATION OF METASTABILITY OF A SUPER COOLED PLASMA

A possibility is considered to obtain a supercooled plasma whose decay time is longer than that predicted by conventional theories of recomb ination, by laser or e-beam ionization of electronegative gas mixture. Our study is based on recent theoretical investigations predicting an anomalously low rate of triple recombination in a lightly ionized ion -ion plasma. According to these investigations the low recombination r ate is caused by the dynamic memory effects taking place in non-binary interactions in a classical Coulomb plasma. We demonstrate that these effects are inconspicuous in the mixtures typically used in exciplex lasers. A special choice of a gas mixture and pump parameters makes it possible to identify the conditions for which the different theories of triple recombination predict quite different behavior of plasma rel axation.